The Blinding Knife
Page 117

Orholam have mercy. That was how she’d gotten into his room. The Blackguards knew they weren’t supposed to allow anyone in, but they wouldn’t stop Karris. Especially not after Gavin had told them that… Ooh.
The very thought that it was Karris brought Gavin fully awake, inflamed him. His succubus was a little awkward, like she didn’t really know what she was doing. Karris had only had two lovers that he’d heard about, and neither of them for long. She hadn’t had all that much practice. Still, in most things she was more coordinated than this.
Gavin brought his hands to the softness of her hips to help guide her. Karris! After sixteen—
Soft? Karris’s hips? A woman could be incredibly fit and still carry a little softness on her hips, of course, but…
She was moaning louder now, and her vocalizations almost covered the sound of voices outside Gavin’s door. He stopped guiding her, but she only ground against him harder.
The door opened and a woman bearing a lantern walked in.
“Watch Captain,” one of the Greylings protested, “I really think you—”
The light from the lantern showed Karris standing at the foot of Gavin’s bed. The same light threw his succubus into shadow. Nor did the woman atop Gavin stop, grinding lascivious hips against him for several long, deliberate seconds after she must have become aware there were others in the room.
Karris flung the lever that opened the brightwater panels on the walls, flooding the room with light.
For one second, Gavin saw nothing as the light blinded him. Then, as his eyes adjusted, the young woman atop him was illuminated fully: Ana Jorvis, the student from the superviolets’ class. Ana, the little temptress who’d tried to sneak into his bed before.
“You mind?” Ana demanded, looking over her shoulder. She was unashamed of her nudity before both Karris and the young Blackguards. Unabashed at being interrupted in coitus. Even proud. Defiant. Haughty.
But Gavin had no thought for her. He was staring at Karris, who looked suddenly dead. Her hair hung around her shoulders, not just loose, but carefully combed and curled. The rouge on her cheeks was the only thing that livened her pallid pallor. Her lips, too, were rouged. Karris never wore makeup. She was wearing a fine cloak that he’d never seen before, and where it was open as her hand held the lantern, Gavin saw lace.
A lace chemise. Karris. Midnight. His bed chamber. She had been planning—
“I said, do you mind? My lord and I are occupied,” Ana said. She took one of Gavin’s hands from where it sat limp on her hip and pressed it to her full breast. The breast she hadn’t let him touch earlier—lest he realize who she was.
Karris bolted.
Gavin flung Ana off with a curse and ran after Karris, going right past the aghast Greyling brothers. “Karris!”
He heard the sound of glass shattering just as he got into the hall and saw that Karris had dropped her lantern in her haste. Its reservoir smashed and oil coated the hallway. Gavin stopped.
The still-burning wick tilted slowly, slowly, and before Gavin could draft, the hallway was alight. He smothered the flaring fire in seconds with great sheets of yellow. When he finally ran through, Karris had already gone down the lift. He hung out over the lift shaft, ignoring the Blackguards guarding it.
She’d stopped one level down, the Blackguard barracks.
“My lord!” the Blackguard Samite shouted.
“Don’t even try to stop—” Gavin snarled.
She held her hands up. Peace. She tossed him her cloak to cover himself. “Good luck, sir.”
Gavin tied the cloak around his waist and jumped into the lift shaft. He dropped down one level. He swung out of the shaft and stormed toward the women’s side of the Blackguard barracks. The door was closed.
“Karris!” he shouted.
But as he approached, a dozen Blackguards, most of them only half dressed, formed ranks seamlessly in front of the door. They made a wall in front of him.
“That’s far enough, my lord,” Tremblefist said, gently. He was one of the half-dressed ones, and even though he wasn’t quite as big as Ironfist, he was still bigger than Gavin. Enormous pectorals, shoulders broad enough to close the Everdark Gates.
“Out of my way!” Gavin shouted.
They said nothing, merely held ranks.
“Damn you all, you can’t stop me!”
“Yes we can,” Tremblefist said. “Now please, sir, leave. Leave before you shame your faithful servants any more than you already have. We’ve new men in our company. They can’t understand.”
Gavin screamed in frustration and stormed out.
The ride up one floor wasn’t enough to cool his rage. His young Blackguards watched him closely, aghast, but said nothing as he strode past them and back into his room.
Ana should have been on her knees, weeping and begging for forgiveness. Instead, she stood in artfully meretricious pose that Gavin recognized from a famous sculpture, the Maiden’s Gift. She’d even put on a fine silk shift identical to the statue’s: back turned, hair spilling over her shoulder, curves in an S, the side of one breast visible. It was so obviously staged that Gavin would have laughed if he weren’t so furious. Instead, it stoked the fires hotter.
“My lord,” she said. “Shall we continue? I’ve so many pleasures yet to share with you.”
Gavin’s self-restraint had one last gasp. He closed his eyes, ground his teeth. Finally said, “Do you have any idea… I only—I thought you were her!”
“What?! Her? She’s all muscly and gross. Karris is old enough to be my mother. I mean, if you want a sparring partner, I’m sure she’s wonderful, but a lover? Bedding her would be like fucking dust. That old bitch—”
A sound like an uncaged tiger tore its way out of Gavin’s throat. He hit the lever that dropped all the windows in his room open and was on top of Ana in an instant.
The night was moonlit, clouds being chased by buffeting winds.
“My lord, what are you doing?!” one of the Blackguards yelled, but Gavin didn’t even hear him. He grabbed a handful of the girl’s hair, walking her backward out into the cold night. “That bitch,” he screamed above the howling wind, “is the woman I love!” With an inhuman roar, he flung Ana from him. Flung her so hard that she hit the railing of the balcony and flipped right over it.
And fell.
She didn’t scream. She barely yelped, and Gavin barely heard it over the sound of wind.
Gavin’s heart stopped, and the wind stopped, but he didn’t hear her land. Maybe something had broken her fall? Maybe someone had saved her?
A fool’s hope, and Gavin knew it.
Rushing to the edge of his balcony, he looked over.
Orholam have mercy. Hundreds of feet below, Ana had landed headfirst. Her body had crumpled all the wrong ways. From here she looked like a grape popped between your fingers: all the skin gathered and juices everywhere.
“My lord…”
Gavin turned and saw his two young Blackguards. The looks on their faces told him that Ana wasn’t the only person who’d just fallen from heaven. He covered his face with his hands. He stepped back inside, and one of them, wide-eyed, closed the windows. Gavin sat on his bed, conscious for the first time of his near nakedness.
“Go tell who you have to tell,” Gavin said. “I’ll be here.”